Trump wants to make it easier to drill in national parks. We mapped the 42 parks at risk.
It’s no secret that oil and gas companies are on the hunt for new places to drill. But the quest for more fossil fuels could heat up in places you might not expect: our national parks.
With President Donald Trump’s executive order on energy, federal agencies are now reviewing all rules that inhibit domestic energy production. And that includes regulations around drilling in national parks that, if overturned, could give oil and gas companies easier access to leases on federal lands they’ve long coveted.
"This opportunity is unique, maybe once in a lifetime," Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute lobby group, told Reuters. It could also put some of America’s most pristine and ecologically sensitive areas at risk of oil spills, ground contamination, and explosions.
There are currently more than 500 active oil and gas wells spread across 12 national parks, as you can see in the map below. In 2015, drilling on federal lands made up nearly a fifth of overall US production.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/4/20/15272642/trump-drill-oil-gas-national-parks-map
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